A travel journal for Angie and Scott during their trip to Tokyo and Beijing for the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Thwarted

Let us count the ways:

No camera in Olympic venues, which means I'm only going to get about 4 days worth of use out of my rig since we only have that many non-event days. We just won't have enough time to go out sightseeing and get back to the hotel to drop off the big camera and still make it to the event venues.

Hotel exercise facilities, unusable. They are open from 1 pm to 11 pm. Who the hell works out between those hours? Our plan to work out every day is out the window.

No access to the Olympic Green complex unless you have credentials or an event ticket for that day at one of the arenas on the Green.

Power adapters aren't working very well. We keep getting big sparks every time we plug something in.

A lot less English being spoken than we expected. We're staying at a hotel that is basically run by one of the main tour companies for the Olympics and the staff barely speaks any English. This is China after all, but we were being told to expect a decent level of English proficiency.

We do have internet access, obviously, so that's at least one thing going in our favor.

5 comments:

I've read in the media here that Olympic officials are disappointed in the amount of people circulating through places like the Olymic Green and they're encouraging China to be more open, or get more people there. I don't know that this affects your situation in a positive way at all, but it was interesting.

I've done very little international traveling, but my first lesson was to Expect Frustration. Good luck!